Wolverhampton v Arsenal: Can we again predict the result by knowing who is the referee?

 

• Wolverhampton v Arsenal; and the team that gives Southampton hope
• An interview on Radio 5 about “North London Forever”

By Bulldog Drummond

You may recall that in the last league match we were able  to predict the result of a draw simply by noting the fact that the referee on that day did not do home wins.

And you might recall how we got rather agitated when we found that the referee for the last Arsenal match – played as you will recall, at home – was a referee who virtually never oversees home wins.   Indeed, so it turned out to be, although not for the first time we have had little inklings that PGMO are reading (if not actually taking any notice of) Untold.

But we don’t want to go back over that so instead let us consider Arsenal being away from home and the match being overseen by Michael Oliver.   (And if you are reading us in PGMO Towers, hello from the real world.)

So what sort of results does Michael Oliver oversee?  To answer that, here is a comparison of his game results with other referees this season.

Last season Oliver oversaw an equal number of home and away wins.  This has however now changed for this season where away wins are now more common.  In the table below the figures are all for this season except the one row where we take Oliver’s from last season to compare with this

 

Referee	Games	HomeWin%	AwayWin%	Draw%
Anthony Taylor	20	20.0	55.0	25.0
Samuel Barrott	14	42.9	50.0	7.1
Stuart Attwell	12	25.0	50.0	25.0
Michael Oliver 2024/25	16	25.0	43.8	31.3
Micahel Oliver 2023/24	24	41.7	41.7	16.7
Andy Madley	10	40.0	40.0	20.0
Peter Bankes	13	61.5	38.5	0.0
Simon Hooper	14	42.9	35.7	21.4
Tony Harrington	12	50.0	33.3	16.7
Craig Pawson	13	46.2	30.8	23.1
Chris Kavanagh	15	6.7	20.0	73.3

 

Now of course, not every percentage point that shifts a referee in the table is down to a deliberate decision by the referee, but the trends are noticeable and indeed noteworthy.   And what we can say, is that today we have a referee who is willing and able to contemplate the concept of the away win.  And that brings a huge sigh of relief after what we had in the last game (ie a referee who could not contemplate a home win).

Now in the issue of Wolverhampton v Arsenal we have found a very curious statistic.   Wolverhampton average 14.2 shots per game, against Arsenal’s 10.5.  But Arsenal have scored 43 goals to Wolverhampton’s 32.   So Arsenal score roughly once every four shotss, while Wolverhampton score one every 2.25 shots.    The key thing as I am sure every other team in the league knows, is just to keep Wolverhampton away from shooting at close range and force them to shoot from distance..  That is what teams do, and game after game Wolverhampton fall into the trap.   It must be quite tedious watching them as a home fan.

So Wolverhampton put in 35% more shots than Arsenal, and 28% more tackles than Arsenal.   And yet they only get 12% more fouls given against them than Arsenal, which clearly shows that either Wolverhampton are the master tacklers, or referees are being lenient toward them.  Since we have seen this before with teams low in the league, the answer is clear.  Not every team is refereed in the same way.

They put in 1.64 tackles before they get a foul, while Arsenal put in 1.43 tackles before getting a foul.   That looks odd and it is.  Clearly, their defenders are not better at defending than Arsenal’s, since Wolverhampton have left in 51 goals to Arsenal’s 21.  It is simply that the worse a team is at defending the more fouls the referees let them get away with.   Their excuse is that they are making the game more watchable, but they are also failing to apply the rules of the game fairly and equally.

Clearly, if Wolverhampton really were the master tacklers they would not be conceding quite so many goals, but when we look at it we find that they have conceded more goals than anyone else (51 this season).  Indeed more even than Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester City, and it is possible that one of those teams will overtake Wolverhampton and send them back to the Championship.

Finally for now we have a spot of transfer news:    Kieran Tierney rejects Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus and Sevilla to agree Celtic return.  That is from the Telegraph.